Ray Strachey (4 June 1887 – 16 July 1940) was a British feminist politician, mathematician, engineer, artist and writer. For most of her life, Strachey worked for
women's suffrage organisations, starting when she was studying mathematics at Cambridge, during which time she took part in the
Mud March of February 1907. Her ambition to become an engineer was abandoned when she married
Oliver Strachey, a civil servant and
cryptographer, in 1911; she continued to take an interest in the role of women in engineering, and campaigned on behalf of the Society of Women Welders in 1920 for women to be permitted to remain in the trade. After World War I, women were granted the vote and permitted to stand for parliament, and she stood as an independent parliamentary candidate in
Brentford and Chiswick at the general elections of 1918, 1922 and 1923, without success.
Photograph credit: unknown; restored by Adam Cuerden